How Capitalism Failed the Arab World: The Economic Roots and Precarious Future of the Middle East Uprisings (Economic Controversies)

Economic liberalization has failed in the Arab world. Instead of ushering in economic dynamism and precipitating gradual democratic reform, it has over the last three decades resulted in greater poverty, rising income inequality and sky-rocketing rates of youth unemployment. In How Capitalism Failed the Arab World, Richard Heydarian shows how years of political autocracy, corruption and economic mismanagement have encouraged people to revolt, and how the initial optimism of the uprisings is now giving way to bitter power struggles and increasing uncertainty. A unique and provocative analysis of one of the key social and political events of the last decade. Front cover 1 Economic Controversies 2 About the author 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Figures and tables 7 Acknowledgements 8 Abbreviations 10 Foreword by Walden Bello 11 1 A brave new Middle East: the birth of a new era 16 Arab exceptionalism 27 Table 1.1 The Arab world’s dismal political record 31 The new awakening 32 The age of the unthinkable 38 Revolutions and economic crises 44 2 The anti-development state: economic origins of Arab upheavals 49 An ocean of broken vows 51 Kemalism and its discontents 55 Taking on the West 58 The grand disappointment 64 The development debacle 65 The rentier state 69 The path to disaster 71 3 The advent of economic globalization: a prelude to crisis 73 Transforming the global South 77 The demographic conundrum 87 4 The Great Recession: the collapse of Arab crony capitalism 91 The impact on the Arab world 95 Table 4.1 Average GDP growth in MENA 98 4.1 Merchandise exports of selected MENA countries 99 4.2 Current account balance as percentage of GDP 100 Food insecurity and protests 101 So what’s next? 108 5 The new power brokers: political Islam and the Arab summer 110 The evolution of political Islam 116 From the peripheries to the core 133 5.1 Declining foreign investment during the revolution 134 5.2 Rising budget deficits in post-revolution states 135 Table 5.1 Egypt: selected economic indicators 136 Table 5.2 Morocco: selected economic indicators 137 Table 5.3 Tunisia: selected economic indicators 138 Any solution in store? 139 6 Gulf exceptionalism: how the monarchies have reshaped the Arab Spring 143 The counter-revolution 151 Table 6.1 GCC key economic indicators 153 7 Peering into the abyss: the Arab Spring at the crossroads 166 Back to Year Zero 169 The slow-motion death of a nation 173 The reign of terror 179 7.1 Breakdown of external aid to ATCs and Jordan 183 8 Where do we go from here? Finding the true path to an Arab Spring 187 The developmental state deficit 189 Table 8.1 Main characteristics of the region 190 Notes 201 References 205 Index 218 Back cover 226 Economic liberalization has failed in the Arab world. Instead of ushering in economic dynamism and precipitating democratic reform, it has over the last three decades resulted in greater poverty, rising income inequality and sky-rocketing rates of youth unemployment. In How Capitalism Failed the Arab World, Richard Javad Heydarian shows how years of economic mismanagement, political autocracy and corruption have encouraged people to revolt, and how the initial optimism of the uprisings is now giving way to bitter power struggles, increasing uncertainty and continued economic stagnation. A unique and provocative analysis of some of the key social and political events of the last decade. The first book to fully examine the long-term economic and geopolitical roots of the Arab uprisings.